Soil erosion control: Leyte

Present estimates suggest that, of 13 million hectares of alienable land in the Philippines, some 9 million are degraded. This major long-term problem can be overcome only by ensuring that farmers in susceptible areas adopt cropping patterns capable of maintaining, and even improving, the fertility of the soil and also construct and maintain effective physical barriers to soil erosion. In the Philippines, the preferred method of soil erosion control - the Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT) - broadly consists of planting leguminous trees or shrubs (Leucaena leucocephala or Gliricidia sp.), or strong-bodied fodder grasses such as Napier grass, on contours.

To adopt an improved farming system, a farmer must first be convinced that it is profitable for him to do so. However, some factors may make an innovation that is economic from a community point of view unprofitable to the farmer. As well as taking a long time for its benefits to accrue, soil erosion control involves a large number of such factors. Firstly, it may be too expensive, if not impossible, for a smallholder to protect his land from run-off unless his neighbours institute similar control measures. Secondly, in general, poorer people place a higher premium on present consumption (= survival) than the wealthy, and may be unable or unwilling to adopt the relatively long-term investment involved. Thirdly, other economic constraints may apply, such as availability of credit or the opportunity cost of labour at critical times and the relative prices of inputs and outputs. Fourthly, institutional arrangements between tenant and landlord may rob the farmer of the incentive to adopt improved practices. Fifthly, the practices recommended may demand group action for adequate effectiveness and equity.

The present project forms the first stage in a longer investigation into the adoption of soil erosion technology in the eastern Visayas. It seeks to obtain firm data on cropping practices and on the costs of implementing soil erosion control measures. Benefits of these measures will be fully calculable only after determination of longer-term hydrological and other data (including those related to the physiology and pathology of Leucaena sp.).

The basic hypothesis assumes that the farmers are consistently 'goal-oriented' and that if they have failed to adopt an available technology it is for reasons that they consider sound. These may involve any of the factors discussed above, and the project will therefore investigate the socioeconomic forces acting on neighbourhoods of farms as well as individuals. It will include an in-depth field study over about 18 months, making household surveys of all the farms in six villages selected from the hilly areas of Leyte. It must be emphasised that the costs of adopting new practices may be estimated within this period, but the costs of failure to adopt soil conservation technologies may take longer to emerge.

The project will first prepare a comprehensive sociocultural, economic, agroclimatic and demographic profile of hillside farming in Leyte. Description of 8541/2

The farm management system there will put special emphasis on the farmers' production and erosion-control decisions. The team will determine the acceptability to farmers of alternative methods of controlling soil erosion, and examine the institutional constraints preventing the adoption of control on a watershed basis. All this information, together with data on farm household production, income and costs, will later be incorporated into a benefit-cost analysis of a farming system that effectively controls erosion on hillside farms in Leyte.

Three research workers will each spend 3 weeks at a time in each of two villages, visiting them at approximately 8-week intervals. A fourth worker will move between the six villages to provide continuity of investigation, and help with compilation and analysis of data. Computer analysis will proceed simultaneously with the survey, thus highlighting any problems in methodology or questionnaire design.